Instead of making a joke, Valve celebrates April Fool's Day by rolling out a Steam storefront 'refresh' that makes it look much nicer

If you're signed up for Steam client betas, you might have noticed that the storefront looks a little fresher today. That's because Valve is testing some updates to the Steam store home page that, you guessed it, "aims to make it even easier for you to find new games by displaying more content and information."

The overall goal of the refresh is to make Steam feel "more cohesive," Valve said, while still providing distinct tools and information for each section. The "Featured and Recommended" section, for instance, now serves up more detailed information on why a particular game is being recommended as well as a user review roundup, and when you hover a game's cover art, a micro-trailer will play, although this can be disabled if you prefer.

The "Discounts and Events" section now uses larger artwork, the Discovery Queue now opens as a transparent overlay on the main page that makes browsing it quicker and easier (and it really does), new sections for your wishlist and DLC for games you already own have been added, and it now does infinite scroll, which frankly I don't care for, but nobody ever asks what I think about these things.

The storefront is now using higher-resolution game art, users "with higher resolution monitors will notice the new store home is wider and more responsive." Exactly what qualifies as "higher resolution" isn't defined, but I've got a low-end 4K display and it is noticeably wider.

The overall impact of the update seems subtle at first glance, but it really is quite an improvement, especially when compared side by side. This is how the Steam home page looked before (and looks now, if you're not in the beta):

And this is after the update was applied—a noticeably more effective use of your display's real estate.

One page down on the old storefront:

And what you get now, with the new wishlist and DLC sections, and again, better overall visibility.

It's not a world-changing update, then, but it is definitely an improvement. Valve didn't say when this design refresh will go live for everyone—that'll depend on how the beta testing goes.

If you want to get in on that action and enjoy the new look right now, you can do so by going to the settings menu of your Steam client: Select the "Interface" tab, and then under the "Client Beta Participation" dropdown, choose "Steam Beta Update." You'll be prompted to restart, after which the beta client will automatically download and install. If you ever want to get out of the beta program, do the same thing but select "No Beta" instead.

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